Jeff Mahoney — CTO
I started my career deep in Linux and open source, and that grounding still shapes how I think about systems, teams, and leadership. I care about building things that last — products, organizations, and communities — and about creating environments where strong engineers can do meaningful work without unnecessary friction. Today, I lead a globally distributed engineering organization spanning platform, edge, and cloud-native systems. Over time, my role has grown to include product direction and organizational design. A lot of my recent work has been about helping refocus our core platform, integrating new teams, and evolving how we operate so responsibilities are clear, collaboration is easier, and decisions are made closer to the work. I work closely across engineering, product, and leadership to connect strategy with execution. Sometimes that means shaping technical direction; other times it’s helping teams navigate change or putting structure in place so growth doesn’t come at the cost of clarity. I started as an engineer, and I try to lead in a way that stays grounded in how systems actually behave — both human and technical. I also stay deeply involved in open source. I serve on the openSUSE board and am helping guide ongoing governance changes in a large, long-running technical community. That work reflects a broader interest in how open ecosystems evolve as they scale, and how structure, culture, and technical direction intersect. I’m especially interested in opportunities at the intersection of open source, platform strategy, and organizational leadership — building products and teams that grow without losing what made them strong in the first place. I’m drawn to organizations that value technical integrity, open collaboration, and long-term growth over short-term optimization.
Stackforce AI infers this person is a leader in Open Source and Linux systems engineering.
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Experience: 28 yrs 1 mo
Skills
- Linux Kernel
- Software Engineering
- Team Leadership
Career Highlights
- Led a globally distributed engineering organization.
- Deeply involved in open source governance.
- Expert in Linux Kernel and platform strategy.
Work Experience
SUSE
VP Engineering, Head of Core Platforms (3 mos)
VP of Engineering, Linux Systems (3 yrs 1 mo)
Director, SUSE Labs Data & Performance (4 yrs 1 mo)
Team Lead, Kernel Engineering, SUSE Labs (18 yrs 5 mos)
Rochester Institute of Technology
Systems Programmer III, Information Systems and Technology (2 yrs 6 mos)
Education
BS at Rochester Institute of Technology
